Linea_Alba

From the I9 Guides to Guides:


[u]TASK FORCES / STRIKE FORCES / RAIDS[u]


The New Statesman's Task Force

Statesman's Task Force - Issue 9 Beta <> Linea_Alba [I9 Beta]

A Statesman's Task Force Guide! (Beta version) <> Robot_Apple [I9 Beta]

VIDEO: Statesman's Taskforce <> Neutra [I9 Beta]

Statesman Task Force Guide <> TrueShadow117 [I9]

<QR>
It's doable in 3-4 hours on invincible. Lowering the difficulty wouldn't cut more than an hour off that. With the right travel powers I'm sure someone will get it down to 2 hours eventually. Of course most people agree my average team isn't the same as your average team, so mileage will vary.

3 defcon teams successful.
3 tank enabled teams successful.
2 tank enabled pugs failures.

Three teams without tanks, and two without any empaths and they all won, it must be some strange fluke of the universe.

The defcon teams actually struggled less in general, but had more trouble with LR. While the Tank teams struggled more overall but less with LR.

Zero for 2 on pugs, but then I originally said pugs would be mostly hopeless.

Between a DDD or a good AoE controller or two, depending on build, the megaspawns can be locked down pretty effectively. (I mention them separately, because a DDD can be the defender version of a controller, but is not a controller per se. )

I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT want this to turn into a Must have X, Must have Y, guide.

GW and LR can both splatter a stone tank so fast your head will spin. If you use a tank, they need support. Without support what does it matter what type of tank you use if they are dead anyway. With support any tank will work, and live.

Empaths are very handy and only ONE of 8 ways to help with the problem. Yes empaths with their strong single target emphasis mesh intuitively and simplisticly with tanks, since a tank is a single target. But a well played empath can cover more than one tank. And two well played empaths can cover an entire team. Two Bubblers could do that, as well as many other combinations of defenders and controllers. There really is more than one way to skin a shark, soulless witch, or over grown cybernetic spider.

I've had a lot more people say they had better success taking the red tower first. Most of those were tank centric teams that lacked the buffs and debuffs that are more common in my own teams.

While I still say, what tower to take first is dependent on your team, including what buffs, and debuffs you have available. It WILL vary from team to team. However, it appears that more teams are having better success with taking the red tower first. I admit my average team does not resemble most other players average team, with that in mind, I also admit that for many of those teams lacking the buff and debuff levels I'm more accustomed to, that the red tower may well be of the higher priority.

If you have an FF, multiple fortitudes or other +def capable of covering the entire team, multiple darks or other -tohit debuffs, or multiple rads or other -damage debuffs, then I'd prioritize the yellow tower and relieve the overall pressure on the entire group, allowing your defenses to drop LR to 10% to-hit, then take the red tower reducing the damage he does when he does get lucky and hit by half.

If you have a heavy taunt tank, but don't have +def or -tohit covering the entire team, then I'd prioritize the red tower to relieve some of the pressure on the tank first by halving LR's damage, then the yellow tower to lower the pressure on the rest of the team making it a bit more likely LR might miss.

However, I can't stress enough how important +def, -dam, can potentially be, when used in sufficient quantity. Neither are resisted and can go a long way to putting the nerf on LR even when all his towers are up. -tohit is also important, but less so due to the massive resists.

Statesman's Task Force - Issue 9 Beta

[ QUOTE ]
Green = Healing Generator (heal, +HP, +Regen), Orange = Protective Generator (+Def, +Res), Blue = Temporal Manipulator (unknown, possibly recharge?), Red = Power Generator (status effect bonus, +Damage?, +ToHit?)

[/ QUOTE ]

Orange ? Not Yellow ? I'd have sworn it was yellow and +tohit. It really felt like our defense buffs doubled in effectiveness just after we smashed it. But, that could just be imagination. We were rather busy just staying alive to stand around asking LR if he was really having a harder time hitting us.

Green and Red I agree.

Blue, I have no clue either, I don't think anyone knows what it does. I just guessed it was endurance.

Update: 070429

[u]Statesman's Task Force 2007-04-15[u]

Printable PDF Diagram

You'll need about 3 to 4 hours, minimum. You could however spend 6 to 10 hours if you don't know what you're doing and where things are ahead of time.

For the most part you'll need an AV capable team and you'll be taking on L52 to L54 AV's. This means you'll want some -regen from Primarily Rad, Kin, Dark, TA primarily. You'll also want some Buffs from FF, Sonic, or Emp as Buffs are not effected by AV resists. Finally you may want repel capabilities or Storm, Kin, FF. I strongly suggest 4 defenders or controllers, preferably 2 of each. Then the rest of the team can fill as you like, however a taunt capable tank will be very valuable in the final encounter, but is not required. Honestly, I can't think of any AT Primary or Secondary that would not be valuable at one point or other, it will all depend on the rest of the team. The only major bias I see is the need for at least half the team to be defcon.

The initial missions are hardly worth mentioning, just your typical AV killer missions. If you're AV capable these should be a push over.

Later in the missions you'll be taking on the Villain Respec. It's important to note the trick on making two passes around the room. The first pass to weaken but do NOT kill the vines. Then on the second pass kill the vines, and finish the mission. Some teams with greater AoE capability will not need this trick, but many teams will. You will want the support person that's least likely to die and has the most endurance to take the temp power at the end of this mission.

Next, In the DR Aeon Mission, you should have had the support person least likely to die and with the most endurance take the temp power from the previous mission. Aeon will be INVINCIBLE until this power is used on him. That's the only trick to that one. If Aeon gets his sheild back up, he'll say something inane like "You'll never take me!" ... just zap him with the temp power again and finish the job. He's a wimp without his sheild.


The Final Mission

In this last mission, you'll be facing 4 L54 AV's at once, then later a L54 invincible LR. Many teams find it beneficial to have Nukes, and Shivans. These can help ease the load tremendously, especially if you pull all 4 AVs at once.


The Patron Avs
First, You'll want to clear the area south of the statue square, then it tends to work best to pull one of the straggler AV's up to that area with a good long snipe. You may get one, you may get all 4. We got 3 and managed well enough (Vengeance FTW). Stoney (earth pet) Tanked GW, the most dangerous of the AV's, while I supported him.

The greatest danger among the 4 Patrons is GW Followed by Mako.

Ghost Widow has a Dark Regeneration type self heal. This means you want to keep as many people out of melee range as possible. Then you need sufficient buffs and debuffs to make it hard for the heal to-hit. If you don't find some way to stop the Dark Regeneration, GW will be impossible to defeat. As if that wasn't enough, GW also has a Soul Storm hold that appears to be near Mag 100 Hold with 4100 neg energy damage. She held our scrapper thru integration and dispersion. That means she can cut thru even the best unsupported status protection. You WILL need to buff your tank with status protection. We've now learned her hold is mag 100. That's 8 levels of Clear Mind. It will be a full time job to keep a tank buffed. Alternately, use controller pets, or use a pair of tanks alternating tanks and vengeances. Make sure if using alternating tanks, that the backup tank remains outside the 10' radius of the Hold. It won't do you any good to have alternating tanks if they both get held and killed simultaneously.

Mako Has the equivalent of Elude and SR Toggles combined for approximately 94% defense. You will need sufficient buffs and debuffs to bring this down to reasonable levels. We had 6 x Tactics, 2 x Rad, and 2 x Earth Controllers. That put us in the +120% to +180% Tohit range. He fell over like a limp noodle. However, a team with no -def and no +tohit will be very hard pressed to take him down. It may even be impossible without either buffs, debuffs, or controls. Considering AV resist, the +tohit buffs are highly preferable. Primarily Fortitude, Tactics, Buildup, Aim, Yellow Inspirations.

The other two AV's I didn't even notice, we killed them by accident I think.

Note, as one AV dies, there seems to be a good likelyhood 1-2 more AVs will aggro randomly if they have not already.


The Flier and Statue Square
Next you'll want to clear the sqaure around the statue, and probably take out the flyer while you're at it. If you can get all the troops and avoid the flyer, that is best. The flyer respawns gwad awful fast. You can't keep rid of the menace. You need to clear this area, as LR will call them as reinforcements into your backside if you don't kill them first.

Next, let the flyer respawn, then take down the flier. One less menace on your backside. It turns out that the flyer does respawn quickly. Regardless, It is a good idea to take the flier out right after you clean the statue square and just before starting in on LR. This will give you a decent period of time to start the attack before it can respawn again. I will say, the flyer did account for about half my deaths the time we didnt' take it out.

That done .... it's time for LR himself. Unfortuneately I can't give a perfect strategy here. I'll give two.

Split Team Strategy

EDIT: Now someone mentions LR teleported to them to defend the towers when their tanker died. More testing is needed here.

Split the team into a Pull Team with taunt tank and enough buff/heal support to keep him alive, and the rest of the team as a Damage Team. If you plan to use the pull team, you'll need to have cleared most of the map to the ship. The entire team engages LR long enough to clear out his support minions. A pair of controllers to help manage the pack of L54 Boss Level Minions are highly reccomended at this point. Then pull team lures LR near to the Long Bow Ship and keeps him taunted there if at all possible. At the minimum you gain time between the damage teams attack and LR attemtping to protect the towers, and at most you keep him entirely occupied.

Be Warned LR can hit for 4695+ flattening even a stone tank in short order, unless that tank has some support. I don't know what his damage cap is, but he can all but one shot most tanks. Support is a requirement here. With enough support any AT can do the job, but tanks of any variety will be prefered.

Then the Damage Team Attacks the Yellow Accuracy Tower First. Meanwhile it is crictical that you KILL ALL REPAIRMEN ASAP. The repairmen can heal the towers very quickly and may even ressurect a defeated tower. Storm, FF, Kin with repel powers can be very valuable in keeping repairmen off towers. Keep an eye on all towers for repairment and do not allow any to live or respawn. Once the first tower is destroyed your defense buffs and accuracy debuffs should be more effective helping your team and tank survive LR.

Then Attack the Red Damage Tower Second. Once this is defeated further pressure should be releived on your team and tank as LR will be doing significantly less damage. Then clean up the rest of the towers, and then spank the unbuffed neutered LR like the wimpy little baby he is.

Note: There is speculation that the blue tower is defense instead of endurance. Depending on team makeup, you may want to reprioritize the various towers.

Tankless Team

For us tankless, it ended up a battle of attrition.

Stonies (earth pet) tanked LR some, but he was too unpredictable, and the stonies couldn't hold him. In the end I (DDD) was tanking LR with (3 luck + Vengeance + FF bubbles + Night Fall + Shadow Fall + Howling + Twighlight Grasp), and he still took me out more times than I want to count. That means his to-hit buffs (until you take out the towers and make him vulnerable) are probably in the +50 range, or I was incredibly unlucky. But so long as I was super defense buffed I was able to hold him for a while.

Finally thru a great deal of attrition (Glad I'm 50 and debt is meaningless) we took out all the towers, then LR Fell in a blink. GW was actually harder than the unbuffed LR. It's all about managing all the spawns from 20 directions till you can take out the towers. Once the towers fall LR is a wimp.


Conclusion
Does that mean, ANY team can do this ? No, I'm afraid not. It requires too much teamwork and planning. While there is no one perfect mix, and many teams will work, for every workable team, I can think of at least one unworkable team. PuGs given their lack of cohesion, teamwork, and general complete random makeup are probably completely doomed.

For organized teams, I think you'll need an extra dose of AV capable defenders or controllers. I recommend at least 4 Defenders or Controllers, but preferably a mix. The AV capable Defenders and Controllers, as well as FF and Stormers will be in key positions to work on this TF, but any Defender or Controller will be a sought after asset. Leadership Capable players of any AT will also be very useful, if not required.


Addendum

Somethings to think about when building the team.

0) Teamwork

1) Normal Anti-AV team, hopefully including some -regen.

2) Some way to counter Mako and his 94% defense.
<ul type="square">a) Vengeance
b) Fortitude
c) Tactics
d) Targeting Drone
e) Buildup and Aim
f) Insights
g) Any +tohit
h) -defense (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
3) Some way to counter Ghost Widows Mag 100 Hold including 4100 neg energy damage.
<ul type="square">a) Clear Mind x 8
b) Increase Density x 8
c) Clarity x 8
d) Stimulant x 8
e) See +Defense (4) Below
f) Animated Stone
g) Phantom Army
h) Other Pet
i) Two Tanks, rotating deaths and vengeance.
j) other[/list]
4) Some way to counter Ghost Widows Dark Regeneration
<ul type="square">a) Only one person/Pet in Melee
b) Vengeance +def
c) Force Feilds
d) Fortitude
e) Lucks
f) Elude+SR toggles yourself
g) Maneuvers
h) +def
i) -tohit (only 15% normal effectiveness)
j) -resists for multiplied damage
k) Multiple Fulcrums for Additional damage (less effective with only one target)
l) any +damage to try to overwhelm the Dark Regeneration (very hard to acheive, but not impossible)
[/list]5) Some way to counter LR's +50 tohit (estimate)
<ul type="square">a) Pet/Tank/Scrapper Taunt and Buffed
b) Vengeance +def
c) Force Feilds
d) Fortitude
e) Lucks
f) Elude+SR toggles yourself
g) Maneuvers
h) +def
i) -tohit (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
6) Some way to counter LR's 4500+ damage
<ul type="square">a) See Above Defenses (5)
b) Sonic Bubbles
c) Any other +resist
d) -damage
e) -recharge (only 15% normal effectiveness)
note) Any character attempting to tank LR will require at least
some support, regardless of AT Primary or Secondary.[/list]
7) Some way to pull and separate the 4 AVs.
<ul type="square">a) double stealthed long range pull that doesn't KB or DoT.
b) some other method.[/list]
8) Some way to deal with two AVs at once.
<ul type="square">a) See (5) +Def
b) See (6) +Resist
c) Buffed Controllers (at least 2) and Immobilize (this will not currently work on test, but will be fixed before live)
d) Controller Pets
e) Taunt Tank
f) Buffed Scrapper
g) Double Buffed anything
h) other.[/list]9) Some way to handle all four
<ul type="square">a) See (8) Above
b) Nukes, Shivans, and every other trick in the book, all at the same time.
c) other[/list]
070429 - Updated GW's Hold Information

Iakona Wrote:[ QUOTE ]

Ghost Widow's Soul Storm
Accuracy: 1.0
AttackTypes: AOE_Attack, Negative_Energy_Attack
Area Affected: Targeted AoE
Range: 80 feet
Radius: 10 feet
Recharge: 45 seconds
Hold Magnitude: 100
Hold Duration: 22 seconds (vs. level 50 hero) (ignores resistance)
Damage: 10 ticks of 410 (vs. level 50 hero) Negative Energy per tick over 10 seconds

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Clearing up some incorrect info about GW's absurdly overpowered hold:

Soul Storm
Accuracy: 1.0
AttackTypes: AOE_Attack, Negative_Energy_Attack
Area Affected: Targeted AoE
Range: 80 feet
Radius: 10 feet
Recharge: 45 seconds
Hold Magnitude: 100
Hold Duration: 22 seconds (vs. level 50 hero) (ignores resistance)
Damage: 10 ticks of 410 (vs. level 50 hero) Negative Energy per tick over 10 seconds

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, I started to call it a mag 100 hold, but thought everyone would call me insane. So I went with what I knew was verifiable and upped it each time those benchmarks were broken. Well, now we know why each of those benchmarks was broken.



[ QUOTE ]
I have just noticed something looking through CoD...

Animated Stone's Hold protection is listed as Mag100.

Just something for folks to chew on...

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, Stoney tanked her great.

Still, Mag 100 and massive damage. If *I* were a tank I'd be cursing insanely at being made so trivially inconsequential. The one thing a team actually needs a tank for, the tank can't do. Well, there's always vengeance bait. Somebody has to be the victim for vengeance, a tank is just as good as anything else for that.

Update: 070429

[u]Statesman's Task Force 2007-04-15[u]

Printable PDF Diagram

You'll need about 3 to 4 hours, minimum. You could however spend 6 to 10 hours if you don't know what you're doing and where things are ahead of time.

For the most part you'll need an AV capable team and you'll be taking on L52 to L54 AV's. This means you'll want some -regen from Primarily Rad, Kin, Dark, TA primarily. You'll also want some Buffs from FF, Sonic, or Emp as Buffs are not effected by AV resists. Finally you may want repel capabilities or Storm, Kin, FF. I strongly suggest 4 defenders or controllers, preferably 2 of each. Then the rest of the team can fill as you like, however a taunt capable tank will be very valuable in the final encounter, but is not required. Honestly, I can't think of any AT Primary or Secondary that would not be valuable at one point or other, it will all depend on the rest of the team. The only major bias I see is the need for at least half the team to be defcon.

The initial missions are hardly worth mentioning, just your typical AV killer missions. If you're AV capable these should be a push over.

Later in the missions you'll be taking on the Villain Respec. It's important to note the trick on making two passes around the room. The first pass to weaken but do NOT kill the vines. Then on the second pass kill the vines, and finish the mission. Some teams with greater AoE capability will not need this trick, but many teams will. You will want the support person that's least likely to die and has the most endurance to take the temp power at the end of this mission.

Next, In the DR Aeon Mission, you should have had the support person least likely to die and with the most endurance take the temp power from the previous mission. Aeon will be INVINCIBLE until this power is used on him. That's the only trick to that one. If Aeon gets his sheild back up, he'll say something inane like "You'll never take me!" ... just zap him with the temp power again and finish the job. He's a wimp without his sheild.


The Final Mission

In this last mission, you'll be facing 4 L54 AV's at once, then later a L54 invincible LR. Many teams find it beneficial to have Nukes, and Shivans. These can help ease the load tremendously, especially if you pull all 4 AVs at once.


The Patron Avs
First, You'll want to clear the area south of the statue square, then it tends to work best to pull one of the straggler AV's up to that area with a good long snipe. You may get one, you may get all 4. We got 3 and managed well enough (Vengeance FTW). Stoney (earth pet) Tanked GW, the most dangerous of the AV's, while I supported him.

The greatest danger among the 4 Patrons is GW Followed by Mako.

Ghost Widow has a Dark Regeneration type self heal. This means you want to keep as many people out of melee range as possible. Then you need sufficient buffs and debuffs to make it hard for the heal to-hit. If you don't find some way to stop the Dark Regeneration, GW will be impossible to defeat. As if that wasn't enough, GW also has a Soul Storm hold that appears to be near Mag 100 Hold with 4100 neg energy damage. She held our scrapper thru integration and dispersion. That means she can cut thru even the best unsupported status protection. You WILL need to buff your tank with status protection. We've now learned her hold is mag 100. That's 8 levels of Clear Mind. It will be a full time job to keep a tank buffed. Alternately, use controller pets, or use a pair of tanks alternating tanks and vengeances. Make sure if using alternating tanks, that the backup tank remains outside the 10' radius of the Hold. It won't do you any good to have alternating tanks if they both get held and killed simultaneously.

Mako Has the equivalent of Elude and SR Toggles combined for approximately 94% defense. You will need sufficient buffs and debuffs to bring this down to reasonable levels. We had 6 x Tactics, 2 x Rad, and 2 x Earth Controllers. That put us in the +120% to +180% Tohit range. He fell over like a limp noodle. However, a team with no -def and no +tohit will be very hard pressed to take him down. It may even be impossible without either buffs, debuffs, or controls. Considering AV resist, the +tohit buffs are highly preferable. Primarily Fortitude, Tactics, Buildup, Aim, Yellow Inspirations.

The other two AV's I didn't even notice, we killed them by accident I think.

Note, as one AV dies, there seems to be a good likelyhood 1-2 more AVs will aggro randomly if they have not already.


The Flier and Statue Square
Next you'll want to clear the sqaure around the statue, and probably take out the flyer while you're at it. If you can get all the troops and avoid the flyer, that is best. The flyer respawns gwad awful fast. You can't keep rid of the menace. You need to clear this area, as LR will call them as reinforcements into your backside if you don't kill them first.

Next, let the flyer respawn, then take down the flier. One less menace on your backside. It turns out that the flyer does respawn quickly. Regardless, It is a good idea to take the flier out right after you clean the statue square and just before starting in on LR. This will give you a decent period of time to start the attack before it can respawn again. I will say, the flyer did account for about half my deaths the time we didnt' take it out.

That done .... it's time for LR himself. Unfortuneately I can't give a perfect strategy here. I'll give two.

Split Team Strategy

EDIT: Now someone mentions LR teleported to them to defend the towers when their tanker died. More testing is needed here.

Split the team into a Pull Team with taunt tank and enough buff/heal support to keep him alive, and the rest of the team as a Damage Team. If you plan to use the pull team, you'll need to have cleared most of the map to the ship. The entire team engages LR long enough to clear out his support minions. A pair of controllers to help manage the pack of L54 Boss Level Minions are highly reccomended at this point. Then pull team lures LR near to the Long Bow Ship and keeps him taunted there if at all possible. At the minimum you gain time between the damage teams attack and LR attemtping to protect the towers, and at most you keep him entirely occupied.

Be Warned LR can hit for 4695+ flattening even a stone tank in short order, unless that tank has some support. I don't know what his damage cap is, but he can all but one shot most tanks. Support is a requirement here. With enough support any AT can do the job, but tanks of any variety will be prefered.

Then the Damage Team Attacks the Yellow Accuracy Tower First. Meanwhile it is crictical that you KILL ALL REPAIRMEN ASAP. The repairmen can heal the towers very quickly and may even ressurect a defeated tower. Storm, FF, Kin with repel powers can be very valuable in keeping repairmen off towers. Keep an eye on all towers for repairment and do not allow any to live or respawn. Once the first tower is destroyed your defense buffs and accuracy debuffs should be more effective helping your team and tank survive LR.

Then Attack the Red Damage Tower Second. Once this is defeated further pressure should be releived on your team and tank as LR will be doing significantly less damage. Then clean up the rest of the towers, and then spank the unbuffed neutered LR like the wimpy little baby he is.

Note: There is speculation that the blue tower is defense instead of endurance. Depending on team makeup, you may want to reprioritize the various towers.

Tankless Team

For us tankless, it ended up a battle of attrition.

Stonies (earth pet) tanked LR some, but he was too unpredictable, and the stonies couldn't hold him. In the end I (DDD) was tanking LR with (3 luck + Vengeance + FF bubbles + Night Fall + Shadow Fall + Howling + Twighlight Grasp), and he still took me out more times than I want to count. That means his to-hit buffs (until you take out the towers and make him vulnerable) are probably in the +50 range, or I was incredibly unlucky. But so long as I was super defense buffed I was able to hold him for a while.

Finally thru a great deal of attrition (Glad I'm 50 and debt is meaningless) we took out all the towers, then LR Fell in a blink. GW was actually harder than the unbuffed LR. It's all about managing all the spawns from 20 directions till you can take out the towers. Once the towers fall LR is a wimp.


Conclusion
Does that mean, ANY team can do this ? No, I'm afraid not. It requires too much teamwork and planning. While there is no one perfect mix, and many teams will work, for every workable team, I can think of at least one unworkable team. PuGs given their lack of cohesion, teamwork, and general complete random makeup are probably completely doomed.

For organized teams, I think you'll need an extra dose of AV capable defenders or controllers. I recommend at least 4 Defenders or Controllers, but preferably a mix. The AV capable Defenders and Controllers, as well as FF and Stormers will be in key positions to work on this TF, but any Defender or Controller will be a sought after asset. Leadership Capable players of any AT will also be very useful, if not required.


Addendum

Somethings to think about when building the team.

0) Teamwork

1) Normal Anti-AV team, hopefully including some -regen.

2) Some way to counter Mako and his 94% defense.
<ul type="square">a) Vengeance
b) Fortitude
c) Tactics
d) Targeting Drone
e) Buildup and Aim
f) Insights
g) Any +tohit
h) -defense (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
3) Some way to counter Ghost Widows Mag 100 Hold including 4100 neg energy damage.
<ul type="square">a) Clear Mind x 8
b) Increase Density x 8
c) Clarity x 8
d) Stimulant x 8
e) See +Defense (4) Below
f) Animated Stone
g) Phantom Army
h) Other Pet
i) Two Tanks, rotating deaths and vengeance.
j) other[/list]
4) Some way to counter Ghost Widows Dark Regeneration
<ul type="square">a) Only one person/Pet in Melee
b) Vengeance +def
c) Force Feilds
d) Fortitude
e) Lucks
f) Elude+SR toggles yourself
g) Maneuvers
h) +def
i) -tohit (only 15% normal effectiveness)
j) -resists for multiplied damage
k) Multiple Fulcrums for Additional damage (less effective with only one target)
l) any +damage to try to overwhelm the Dark Regeneration (very hard to acheive, but not impossible)
[/list]5) Some way to counter LR's +50 tohit (estimate)
<ul type="square">a) Pet/Tank/Scrapper Taunt and Buffed
b) Vengeance +def
c) Force Feilds
d) Fortitude
e) Lucks
f) Elude+SR toggles yourself
g) Maneuvers
h) +def
i) -tohit (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
6) Some way to counter LR's 4500+ damage
<ul type="square">a) See Above Defenses (5)
b) Sonic Bubbles
c) Any other +resist
d) -damage
e) -recharge (only 15% normal effectiveness)
note) Any character attempting to tank LR will require at least
some support, regardless of AT Primary or Secondary.[/list]
7) Some way to pull and separate the 4 AVs.
<ul type="square">a) double stealthed long range pull that doesn't KB or DoT.
b) some other method.[/list]
8) Some way to deal with two AVs at once.
<ul type="square">a) See (5) +Def
b) See (6) +Resist
c) Buffed Controllers (at least 2) and Immobilize (this will not currently work on test, but will be fixed before live)
d) Controller Pets
e) Taunt Tank
f) Buffed Scrapper
g) Double Buffed anything
h) other.[/list]9) Some way to handle all four
<ul type="square">a) See (8) Above
b) Nukes, Shivans, and every other trick in the book, all at the same time.
c) other[/list]
070429 - Updated GW's Hold Information

Iakona Wrote:[ QUOTE ]

Ghost Widow's Soul Storm
Accuracy: 1.0
AttackTypes: AOE_Attack, Negative_Energy_Attack
Area Affected: Targeted AoE
Range: 80 feet
Radius: 10 feet
Recharge: 45 seconds
Hold Magnitude: 100
Hold Duration: 22 seconds (vs. level 50 hero) (ignores resistance)
Damage: 10 ticks of 410 (vs. level 50 hero) Negative Energy per tick over 10 seconds

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
She can Hold through Granite + Rooted. That's 33 mag of protection. It's got to be more than a mag 20 hold.

[/ QUOTE ]
QFT, when I ran the TF our tanker got held immediately and he had 4 CM's on him.

[/ QUOTE ]

O.O That would be mag 65+

Gah, that puts a lot bigger emphasis on buffers, pets, and defense. Almost forcing team to NOT use tanks. Tanks are already the "red headed stepchild" of CoH, why make it worse and force us to take along even more defenders to babysit them, or controllers pets to make them obsolete.

At mag 65, I would consider that excessive emphasis on anti-melee anti-tank ability. Her Dark Regeneration is enough of a anti-melee anti-tank weapon alone.

[ QUOTE ]
is a all controller team possible to beat the STF??

[/ QUOTE ]

All Controller: Yes. Most standard superteam builds would manage.
All Defender: Yes. Most standard superteam builds would manage.
All Tanker: hmm, maybe ? With a special build. I'd have to chat with the all tanker superteam. (Ghost Widow, ouch.)
Scrapper: hmm, maybe ? With a special build. I'd have to chat with the all scrapper superteam. (Ghost Widow, ouch.)
All Blaster: That's a lot of inspirations .... I'm thinking probably not. But if we put our minds and debt bars to the test, someone would probably manage.

[ QUOTE ]
...Always keep ID/CM on at least the tank, if not also on everyone facing GW (her Fear cone can also be a problem for those not directly targeted by her Hold)....

[/ QUOTE ]

GW's hold is Approximately Mag 20. (exact value unknown)

CM, ID, CL, ST = Mag 12.9 Defender
CM, ID, CL, ST = Mag 10.4 Controller

Tanker Protections = Mag 12.9
Scrappers Protections = Mag 10.4

That means 2 CM's on squishies, and 1 CM+Sheilds on scrappers and tanks.

It's a feature (aka: bug). Similar to Rise of the Phoenix sometimes allowing you to die. I believe that's the power I was thinking of, if not, I'm sure someone will correct me.

[ QUOTE ]
.......
But what I want to know is can any tank but stone/? survive and distract Recluse long enough for the towers to go down? ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Not even a Stone Tank can survive without support. Stop devaluing other tanks in favor of the obvious brute force option. It doesn't work alone either.

(subjective) 20 seconds for a stone vs 10 seconds for a fire vs 5 seconds for a squishy is irrelevant. Dead is Dead, and Dead is LR putting the smack down on the rest of the team. Support your tank, and if you support your tank, any tank becomes viable with only the level of support varying from minimal for stone to medium for fire. Meanwhile, in the rest of the STF your other tanks talents and offenses will make them overall just as useful as another. (and if you have what I call heavy support, even a squishy can tank. )

Adrenalin Boost with it's base 500% regen enhanceable to 1000% (think equivalent to Regen Scrapper Instant Healing. A tank with Instant Healing and recovery and recharge!) was reported to be sufficient support for a stone tank.

The question then becomes, is AB alone sufficient support for all other forms of tank, if not, would AB+Fortitude be sufficient. If yes, then any tank will do. An unstoppable tank + AB for instance ?

[ QUOTE ]
...But the "non-standard" players were from a highly organised SG of highly skilled players.

Leaving nothing proven.


[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't say that.

Organised? *Laughs*, if that was organised, I'd hate to see unorganised.

Highly Skilled ? Smarter than the average bear, sure. Highly skilled, meh, some more than others, some less than others. But we were able to STOP, THINK, and DISCUSS without getting impatient and someone flying off at the handle and thinking they "knew it all". We also didn't have 8 people playing in solomode as is so common in pugs. We did have a some isolated cases of solomode, myself guilty of that at a few points even if no others were.

My main advice would be STOP, THINK, EVALUATE, DISCUSS. Read the INFO tab on every person and power in your group, even if you aren't the leader. I do that at least superficially for every group I join, and with a great more care and detail for groups I lead. Know what those characters should be capable of based on that information. Know that even tho they should be capable, based on their powers, they may not be. Work from there.

[ QUOTE ]

Of course, people just building a PuG team for STF will go with the perfect mix, leaving the average player without AT golden-standard powersets in a most RSF situation.


[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sure some will, but I wouldn't want to be on those narrow minded bleeps teams anyway. That's why I made the list, to give people a better idea of the options, all the options, not just some narrow minded set of the perfect uber farming team. I expect I even missed some options, I'm not perfect either. I'd love to hear more ideas and options.

[ QUOTE ]

I liked that step-by-step checklist of things to do to overcome STF though... it should really be put up as a guide.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is elsewhere. I'll put both halves together in the guides section here once it goes live and I think we've hashed out most (not all, you never get them all) of the issues.

hmm, juicey. *trollops off grinning and salivating to ponder the implications*

Hey, that would explain why Darkest Night appeared more effective than I expected. It was the normally overlooked -damage component.

I assumed Radiation Infection, Enervating Field and Lingering Radiation would all be resisted in i9 ?

That would put 8 rads at
Av tohit Pc: 102 - 52 ~= 50%
Pc tohit Av: 48 - (-48) ~= 95%
Pc to AV dam: -49% resist ~= 50% more damage, or is it double ?
Av Dam: ~= -40%
Av Rech: ~= -125%
Av Runspeed: ~= -125%
Av Regen: ~= -166%

But I admit I don't totally understand how the resists effect or are going to effect and which resists effect how. This was just my general assumptions. But if those resists work anything like that, it's easy to see an apparent bias towards buffing over debuffing, at least vs the AV itself.

But then to equal those 8 debuffs, you need an FF, a Sonic, both with leadership, and you still haven't met the recharge runspeed and regen ... and I'm not sure if you can. So I feel at least a superficial bias, if not a more substantial one. It's hard to quantitate all buffs and debuffs (recharge/slow) with each other, tho others are easier to compare like (def/tohit) and (damage/resist).

If the resists aren't going to be that brutal on all debuffs, the ones that they won't apply to would be crucial to know.

Somethings to think about when building the team.

0) Teamwork

1) Normal Anti-AV team, hopefully including some -regen.

2) Some way to counter Mako and his 94% defense.
<ul type="square">a) Vengeance
b) Fortitude
c) Tactics
d) Targeting Drone
e) Buildup and Aim
f) Insights
g) Any +tohit
h) -defense (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
3) Some way to counter Ghost Widows Mag 20 Hold
<ul type="square">a) Clear Mind
b) Increase Density
c) Clarity
d) Stimulant
e) other[/list]
4) Some way to counter Ghost Widows Dark Regeneration
<ul type="square">a) Only one person/Pet in Melee
b) Vengeance +def
c) Force Feilds
d) Fortitude
e) Lucks
f) Elude+SR toggles yourself
g) Maneuvers
h) +def
i) -tohit (only 15% normal effectiveness)
[Edit]
j) -resists for multiplied damage
k) Multiple Fulcrums for Additional damage (less effective with only one target)
l) any +damage to try to overwhelm the Dark Regeneration (very hard to acheive, but not impossible)
[/Edit][/list]5) Some way to counter LR's +50 tohit (estimate)
<ul type="square">a) Pet/Tank/Scrapper Taunt and Buffed
b) Vengeance +def
c) Force Feilds
d) Fortitude
e) Lucks
f) Elude+SR toggles yourself
g) Maneuvers
h) +def
i) -tohit (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
6) Some way to counter LR's 4500+ damage
<ul type="square">a) See Above Defenses (5)
b) Sonic Bubbles
c) Any other +resist
d) -damage
e) -recharge (only 15% normal effectiveness)[/list]
7) Some way to pull and separate the 4 AVs.
<ul type="square">a) double stealthed long range pull that doesn't KB or DoT.
b) some other method.[/list]
8) Some way to deal with two AVs at once.
<ul type="square">a) See (5) +Def
b) See (6) +Resist
c) Buffed Controllers (at least 2) and Immobilize (this will not currently work on test, but will be fixed before live)
d) Controller Pets
e) Taunt Tank
f) Buffed Scrapper
g) Double Buffed anything
h) other.[/list]9) Some way to handle all four
<ul type="square">a) See (8) Above
b) Nukes, Shivans, and every other trick in the book, all at the same time.
c) other[/list]

On pulling the AVs .... what if you try to double pull ? Pull to the first spot with max range and (double) stealthed snipe ... then fall back to the "L" and Snipe again with max range and (double)
stealth. Then kill him in the L ? Would that be far enough back to not pull any of the rest of the AVs ? But without having to try to pull all the way to the boat.

I think next chance I get (this weekend most likely) I'll try that.

I would ask if anyone has tried a range boosted snipe, but I don't think you can LOS more than a few yds beyond Moonbeam and Psionic Lance range anyway ?

That might work too. Since I've not been on a team that was leadership deficient I don't know how he behaves. If it's on/off .. then ... make it 3 slotted No-Hasten so it's the full 10 minute recharge but still the full 72% defense ? Is that basically what you're saying ? If so, that would sound reasonable. If you don't have leadership, you just have to survive him long enough for the elude to drop, then you paste him to the wall. Not easy, but doable ? And still a second path to sucess, even if a less desirable path ?

[ QUOTE ]
....Makos defense is *roughly* between 75%, if you didn't have Fortitude on you, and 95%, if you did. ....

[/ QUOTE ]

That looks strangely familiar ...

Could it just be the equivalent of 6 slotted Elude ? = 72% Defense
Or 6 slotted Elude + 6 slotted SR Toggles ? = 94% Defense

If we want to assume they aren't cheating too bad ... then ... that would only leave the question of durations ? We do know NPCs cheat on their skills. But they also follow "some" rules ... so ... what if it's Perma Elude or Perma Elude with Toggles ?

We've all fought elude level targets, Paragon Protectors. But has anyone before fought a Paragon Protector with 24k HP and the equivalent of Instant Healing (AV regen) and Elude ? Maybe we're just getting a taste of the (Elude + Instant Healing) effect.

I think that might at least be a reasonable logic path to follow.

O.O I like that explanation better. hmm, will need to experiment more.

&lt;QR&gt;
Pulling works ... if you know how to pull. I find 9 out of 10 people that think they know how to pull, don't.

The AVs are linked. Even if you DO pull one and only ONE, when that one dies, 2 more will aggro immediately. But fighting One, then Two, then One, is much easier than 4.

As to needing to build the team, you can't have your cake and eat it too. IF this is supposed to be the hardest single team challenge in the game, then it can not also be so easy that any team with a random makeup and people that don't understand what working together as a team means can complete it also. To make it completeable by ANY team would mean to make it completeable by a team of 8 "healers" with only one single unslotted attack each. I don't want to see a LRSF where essentially only one recipe will work, but I also don't want the STF trivialized to where 8 people with nothing but brawl can complete it either. Where's a happy medium ? I don't know, but I think they are close to it. IF I had a major concern, I think it might be Mako, simply because the debuffs are so undervalued, and may skew teams to much toward leadership and buffs. But I personally think they have things close to "The hardest single task any one team can do in City of Heroes."

If I were looking to rebalance Mako, I think I would simply lower his resist to debuffs, and his resist only. That way both buffs and debuffs would be capable of defeating him. Leading to two paths instead of essentially one. I don't like the "ONE Answer" path, I don't mind a "preferred answer". Dropping his -defense resists to enable more effective debuffing would level that out some, without actually dropping his defense. I wouldn't drop the defense itself, only the resist to debuffing.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm saying that on their own, most tank primaries won't fair well in the STF.
....

[/ QUOTE ]

That's your problem right there. You want to do it all by your tank self.

Stop thinking in terms of individual characters, and instead try to think in terms of team as a whole. Build Teams, not just characters.

I honestly don't think even a Stone tank can survive Lord Recluse unsupported, even if they can survive everything else defensively. And even if Stone could survive defensively, their offense is pathetic without support buffs like a Speed Boost, Adrenalin Boost, AM, etc. Yes Granite Tanks may be twice as defensive as other tanks, but they pay for it in offense. Other tanks can have both offense and defense. Those same other tanks have at least twice the defense as the most defensive scrapper. That scrapper has at least some more defense than almost all defenders, until you start stacking defenders at least.

But, in general, if a defender can tank LR (and I did), then a scrapper with the same buffs can tank better, and a tanker with the same buffs can tank better than the scrapper, and a granite tanker can tank better than other tanks with the same buffs. But a tanks only usefulness is not "just tanking", or at least it shouldn't be, you have secondaries for a reason. Each AT brings something different to the team, each is useful, and none is more or less useful than the other in the team environment. But outside the team environment, none of them are going to survive LR, some may simply take a few more seconds to die, and what's the difference in 1 second and 10, when dead is dead.

Defenders are anything but worthless in this TF. Stormers specifically will have a key role in defending the towers. Defenders in general are IMO very in demand, and taking up to half the spaces for a typical STF team. But that demand is tempered by wanting not just all debuff defenders or all buff defenders, but instead a mix of buffs, debuffs, and healing. Ideally, You need a little of everything, and certain key attributes you need more of. Just because they can't "do it all" with one defender or one type of defender is not a bad thing.

LR has massive accuracy buffs until you take down the accuracy tower. You're gonna have to do more than snowstorm him. In fact, the way his AI works, if that's all you do to him, it's pretty much a guaranteed insta-death. But then you already noticed that.

If he only hit you for 3300, count yourself lucky, he hit me for 4695 more than once. Overpowered ? Sure. But how else are the devs going to FORCE you to bring along a buffed tank. Everything else up until LR himself we did tankless with little difficulty. If they let that stand, tanks would be screaming bloody murder. As is, while we did win tankless, it was a nasty battle of attrition without a tank. I personally will like having a tank along.

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the diagram, Linea_Alba. What is the scale? In particular, about how far apart are the towers from each other, and from the boat?

[/ QUOTE ]
Scale ? *laughs* It's conceptual, just drawn from memory.

And yes, tactics is more valuable than the debuffs when facing Mako.

We had +120 in tactics alone, plus vengeance.

While the Rads and Earth could have added up to ... *guesses* 200 ? 300 ? -defense ? with the AV resists thats only 30 to 45. The buffs are more valuable. Not saying the debuffs are worthless, just reduced significantly from their normal value.

[u]Statesman's Task Force 2007-04-15[u]

Printable PDF Diagram

You'll need about 3 to 4 hours, minimum. You could however spend 6 to 10 hours if you don't know what you're doing and where things are ahead of time.

For the most part you'll need an AV capable team and you'll be taking on L52 to L54 AV's. This means you'll want some -regen from Primarily Rad, Kin, Dark, TA primarily. You'll also want some Buffs from FF, Sonic, or Emp as Buffs are not effected by AV resists. Finally you may want repel capabilities or Storm, Kin, FF. I strongly suggest 4 defenders or controllers, preferably 2 of each. Then the rest of the team can fill as you like, however a taunt capable tank will be very valuable in the final encounter, but is not required. Honestly, I can't think of any AT Primary or Secondary that would not be valuable at one point or other, it will all depend on the rest of the team. The only major bias I see is the need for at least half the team to be defcon.

The initial missions are hardly worth mentioning, just your typical AV killer missions. If you're AV capable these should be a push over.

Later in the missions you'll be taking on the Villain Respec. It's important to note the trick on making two passes around the room. The first pass to weaken but do NOT kill the vines. Then on the second pass kill the vines, and finish the mission. Some teams with greater AoE capability will not need this trick, but many teams will. You will want the support person that's least likely to die and has the most endurance to take the temp power at the end of this mission.

Next, In the DR Aeon Mission, you should have had the support person least likely to die and with the most endurance take the temp power from the previous mission. Aeon will be INVINCIBLE until this power is used on him. That's the only trick to that one. If Aeon gets his sheild back up, he'll say something inane like "You'll never take me!" ... just zap him with the temp power again and finish the job. He's a wimp without his sheild.


The Final Mission

In this last mission, you'll be facing 4 L54 AV's at once, then later a L54 invincible LR. Many teams find it beneficial to have Nukes, and Shivans. These can help ease the load tremendously, especially if you pull all 4 AVs at once.


The Patron Avs
First, You'll want to clear the area south of the statue square, then it tends to work best to pull one of the straggler AV's up to that area with a good long snipe. You may get one, you may get all 4. We got 3 and managed well enough (Vengeance FTW). Stoney (earth pet) Tanked GW, the most dangerous of the AV's, while I supported him.

The greatest danger among the 4 Patrons is GW Followed by Mako.

Ghost Widow has a Dark Regeneration type self heal. This means you want to keep as many people out of melee range as possible. Then you need sufficient buffs and debuffs to make it hard for the heal to-hit. If you don't find some way to stop the Dark Regeneration, GW will be impossible to defeat. As if that wasn't enough, GW also has a hold that appears to be near Mag 20. She held our scrapper thru integration and dispersion. That means she can cut thru even the best unsupported status protection. You WILL need to buff your tank with status protection.

Mako Has PBU level Elude. You will need sufficient buffs and debuffs to bring this down to reasonable levels. We had 6 x Tactics, 2 x Rad, and 2 x Earth Controllers. That put us in the +120% to +180% Tohit range. He fell over like a limp noodle. However, a team with no -def and no +tohit will be very hard pressed to take him down. It may even be impossible without either buffs, debuffs, or controls. Considering AV resist, the +tohit buffs are highly preferable. Primarily Fortitude, Tactics, Buildup, Aim, Yellow Inspirations.

The other two AV's I didn't even notice, we killed them by accident I think.

Note, as one AV dies, there seems to be a good likelyhood 1-2 more AVs will aggro randomly if they have not already.


The Flier and Statue Square
Next you'll want to clear the sqaure around the statue, and probably take out the flyer while you're at it. If you can get all the troops and avoid the flyer, that is best. The flyer respawns gwad awful fast. You can't keep rid of the menace. You need to clear this area, as LR will call them as reinforcements into your backside if you don't kill them first.

Next, let the flyer respawn, then take down the flier. One less menace on your backside. It turns out that the flyer does respawn quickly. Regardless, It is a good idea to take the flier out right after you clean the statue square and just before starting in on LR. This will give you a decent period of time to start the attack before it can respawn again. I will say, the flyer did account for about half my deaths the time we didnt' take it out.

That done .... it's time for LR himself. Unfortuneately I can't give a perfect strategy here. I'll give two.

Split Team Strategy

EDIT: Now someone mentions LR teleported to them to defend the towers when their tanker died. More testing is needed here.

Split the team into a Pull Team with taunt tank and enough buff/heal support to keep him alive, and the rest of the team as a Damage Team. If you plan to use the pull team, you'll need to have cleared most of the map to the ship. The entire team engages LR long enough to clear out his support minions. A pair of controllers to help manage the pack of L54 Boss Level Minions are highly reccomended at this point. Then pull team lures LR near to the Long Bow Ship and keeps him taunted there if at all possible. At the minimum you gain time between the damage teams attack and LR attemtping to protect the towers, and at most you keep him entirely occupied.

Be Warned LR can hit for 4695+ flattening even a stone tank in short order, unless that tank has some support. I don't know what his damage cap is, but he can all but one shot most tanks.

Then the Damage Team Attacks the Yellow Accuracy Tower First. Meanwhile it is crictical that you KILL ALL REPAIRMEN ASAP. The repairmen can heal the towers very quickly and may even ressurect a defeated tower. Storm, FF, Kin with repel powers can be very valuable in keeping repairmen off towers. Keep an eye on all towers for repairment and do not allow any to live or respawn. Once the first tower is destroyed your defense buffs and accuracy debuffs should be more effective helping your team and tank survive LR.

Then Attack the Red Damage Tower Second. Once this is defeated further pressure should be releived on your team and tank as LR will be doing significantly less damage. Then clean up the rest of the towers, and then spank the unbuffed neutered LR like the wimpy little baby he is.

Tankless Team

For us tankless, it ended up a battle of attrition.

Stonies (earth pet) tanked LR some, but he was too unpredictable, and the stonies couldn't hold him. In the end I (DDD) was tanking LR with (3 luck + Vengeance + FF bubbles + Night Fall + Shadow Fall + Howling + Twighlight Grasp), and he still took me out more times than I want to count. That means his to-hit buffs (until you take out the towers and make him vulnerable) are probably in the +50 range, or I was incredibly unlucky. But so long as I was super defense buffed I was able to hold him for a while.

Finally thru a great deal of attrition (Glad I'm 50 and debt is meaningless) we took out all the towers, then LR Fell in a blink. GW was actually harder than the unbuffed LR. It's all about managing all the spawns from 20 directions till you can take out the towers. Once the towers fall LR is a wimp.


Conclusion
Does that mean, ANY team can do this ? No, I'm afraid not. It requires too much teamwork and planning. While there is no one perfect mix, and many teams will work, for every workable team, I can think of at least one unworkable team. PuGs given their lack of cohesion, teamwork, and general complete random makeup are probably completely doomed.

For organized teams, I think you'll need an extra dose of AV capable defenders or controllers. I recommend at least 4 Defenders or Controllers, but preferably a mix. The AV capable Defenders and Controllers, as well as FF and Stormers will be in key positions to work on this TF, but any Defender or Controller will be a sought after asset. Leadership Capable players of any AT will also be very useful, if not required.

I won't completely disagree with that. It is more true at lower levels when the stronger buffs and debuffs are harder to find, which gives healing a greater subjective power at those levels. However, that doesn't last very long as you level further.

First I prefer to not be hit at all - Defense, Control, and Debuffs
Then I prefer to be hit less frequently - Control and Debuffs (ex: -recharge)
Then if I'm going to be hit, I prefer to be hit for less damage - Resistance and Debuffs
Then when all else has failed and I've been hit, and taken damage, THEN I want to be healed - Healing
Sooner or later, no matter what I do, I WILL BE HIT and TAKE DAMAGE and want - Healing.

So yes, healing is important, but it's also, to my mind, a last resort. I prefer to not be hit at all, or be hit for as little damage as possible first. If I'm hit as little as possible for as little damage as possible, then healing becomes less and less important.

I agree a good balance is the best answer.

A radiation defender is a good example of what I consider a near perfect balance. Rad has a good debuff that acts as defense, another debuff that acts as resistance, then a minor heal to patch up what gets between the two. A near perfect balance of defense/resist/healing. It also has considerable other utility, not mentioned. If only there was a buff set, instead of anchor based debuff set, with similar properties.